


They Save Tragedy For Heroes

by PSQQA



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Orpheus!Grantaire, because reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 07:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PSQQA/pseuds/PSQQA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are not a hero of tales. There is no reason any divine being should pay heed to you. You have no outstanding qualities to speak of. You have no great deeds to your name. You make jest of their histories. You mock their ambitions. </p>
<p>You do not believe in them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Save Tragedy For Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Damn you and your classical allusions, Hugo.

You should not be the one standing here.

An offering of wine is easy to make when you carry it always in your blood, when there is no real expectation of an acknowledgement. The offering of faith is harder to come by. It is also, as it turns out, not required.

Now you stand before a god who should not exist, in a hall built upon the regrets of non-believers.

You are not a hero of tales. There is no reason any divine being should pay heed to you. You have no outstanding qualities to speak of. You have no great deeds to your name. You make jest of their histories. You mock their ambitions.

You do not believe in them.

Your wine-soaked tongue speaks regardless. A rambling plea, steeped in the tales that carry this place, cloaked in enough eloquence to hopefully shroud the lurking panic, contempt, the certainty of failure.

It is summer, She is not here to be moved by your words, but He understands well enough your allusions. He sits languorously upon his cold throne and says to you, “A poet stood here once, and made the same request of me. He had a sweet voice, a well of talents, and a conviction strong enough to sway hearts. What do you have that should make you successor to his cause?”

 You have nothing to lose; to lie now would be to pretend otherwise. “Nothing,” you reply. “It is the one I ask for who bears those gifts.”

He smiles to hear you so self-effacing, so at his divine mercy. “Why should I give up such a soul? Winter will come again, and my lady will delight in his radiance.”

You think of his golden hair, dulled by the dim glow of the hall’s sickly torches, his eyes blazing with purpose for a land so endless in its immutability, his impassioned voice calling to action a field of long-numbed souls. The sorrow is unbearable. “His gifts were given for the living,” you say. “Those of this realm will find no joy in them. Not even your wife.”

He is taken aback, briefly, but presses on. “That may be, but he is one of mine now. Why should I give him up to you? You are no poet.”

You have nothing to lose. “No, I am not, and the only words I have for you are empty; the only gestures hollow. I would trade you my own soul for his, but you would not consider it an equal exchange. To offer, then, would be meaningless.”

 He sits back then, no longer smiling, and regards you curiously.

“You are mistaken in that,” he says, eventually. “The poet’s words were fair, his voice moving, but they were empty in the end. He stood here, brave, enthralling, and utterly certain in his cause. But that certainty lasted no longer than a slightest hint of doubt.

“You, however, endowed only with a certainty of failure, come here before me still and make your plea. You have no reason to think that you might sway me, other than the knowledge that one has done it before.”

He is silent a while longer then. You will not hope. You are waiting on a whim, after all, and to hope after those is futile.

Finally, he seems to come to a decision. “You have no songs and no fervor with which to appeal to my lady, but she is not here to begrudge you that. Instead, you face me, and I rule over the realm of bleak inevitability. Bitter honesty appeals far better to my nature than sanguine eloquence ever will.

“Go, and take your soul with you. I should like to see if the test of faith proves more difficult to a skeptic than it did to an optimist. After all, no matter the outcome, you’ll both end up back here eventually.”

With that, your audience is over and the hall fades. You stand before a long staircase, your objective laid out for you. Now, all you need is faith.

You begin to walk.

You know how this story goes. Strings of words run through your mind, retracing their terrible endings. The hero falters. The silence is a boundless chasm of untethered solitude, a crushing press of expectant purpose. His pride tells him he is someone’s joke. His fear tells him there will be hell to pay. His reverence tells him the gods do not barter with mortals. He stops believing.

But you are not a hero. You are not a poet, a prophet, a singer of great songs. The gods have always mocked you, and you them, because there is as little greatness to be found in them as there is in you. Divinity does not mean they are above your mortal failings. The monotony of their existence drags on same as yours, no end in sight but a final disappearance, no greater objective than to make do with what is presented to you. So, of course you are their joke, but that does not mean you have to entertain.

You walk, and you don’t look back.

Hades thinks this to be about whether or not you trust his word, whether or not you believe yourself worthy of a god’s mercy, whether or not you can believe in a god at all. He wants to challenge the cynic, test the limits of skepticism as he once tested the limits of faith. He is a god-king, and he believes himself entitled to regard. He thinks that by virtue of his divinity his words hold sway over you; that, despite yourself, you will carry with you the weight of his magnanimity. That conceit blinds him, as it blinds all those who think their power to be a right. He is a god-king, and his words mean nothing to you.

This is about a man, and believing is hard for you, but believing in him is the easiest thing in the world. You don’t know if he’s following you, and if he isn’t, it will be no more than you expect. But if he is, it is because he has made the decision to do so. If he is, you will not doubt his resolution. You gave him your faith long before it was ever asked of you.

You walk.

You don’t look back.

Eventually, you feel someone fall into step beside you, feel a hand slip into yours. Only then do you turn, not to look behind, but to the side, and see what your faith has earned you.

You are not Orpheus, but your Eurydice is smiling at you.

Together, you walk on.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!


End file.
